Steve travels #30: To journey in Tajikistan
I’ve long ago given up the idea of travelling in Tajikistan. An array of logistical challenges, permits, car hires and drivers to visit a country renowned for bad food, conservative culture, autocratic government and bad roads. But returning from Khiva, I’ll be passing through Samarkand, and Tajikistan is right there - the border barely an hour away. It’s even possible to visit the nearest popular tourist attraction, “the seven lakes” as a day trip. Curiosity gets the better of me, and off I go.
It’s a slow start, thanks to a sumptuous poolside breakfast. There’s bread, eggs, fried things combining eggs and bread, many fruits, pastries, and everybody’s favourite, instant coffee. Unusually, it is accompanied by a large saucepan of hot milk, from which one messily ladles it out. It’s remarkable just how absent regular cold milk is from my Central Asian journey. In Kyrgyzstan, powdered milk was pretty commonly provided in cafes and restaurants. In Uzbekistan, not at all.
I feign interest in a few more more museums and monuments before running down the clock with yet another visit to my favourite haunt: the Terrassa cafe whose frappucinos keep my coffee and ice cream levels nominal.
My second-class “coupé” sleeper from Khiva is a big improvement over the pleb-class sleeper from Bukhara. Long enough to stretch out, enough headroom to sit up, it’s pure comfort, and even the late night chatter and smoking from the couple on the bunks below can’t get me down.
Samarkand station is surprisingly busy for 4am, and there are multiple options for coffee as I wait for the sun to come up. I discover the mysterious VIP room with plush couches, and the even more mystifying glass-roofed tropical rainforest.
The city, which had overwhelmed me with taxi touts on my first arrival, gets shy, and by the time I’m ready to go, I can’t rustle up a single driver on Yandex. I resort to the old technique of flagging down a taxi on the street, and haggling. I say 120k, he says 200k, I walk away, he yells 160k, and we settle on 150k. You can see why I prefer Yandex.
The border is incredibly relaxed at 7am and I breeze through. I acquire some Tajik somonis, and it’s a bit of a shock to deal with currency that doesn’t have three or four extra 0’s on the end of everything. 10 somonis is about $1.50, got it. One of the weirdest things is later instead of receiving a 1 somoni coin in some change, I get given a stack of five 0.2 somoni coins, sticky-taped together, apparently quite common.
The basic plan is to spend a night at the widely recommended hostel in Panjakent, “Salom”, find a few people who also want to go to the seven lakes, and split a taxi the next day.
It’s almost too easy. Everyone is going there, or has just been. Within hours, we have formed a group: Carole from France, Jeremy from Sydney, Joey from Kilkenny. They all want to spend a night at a guesthouse amongst the lakes somewhere, and to save having to do any of my own research, I hop on board.
Carole, Joey and I explore Panjakent’s only real sight, an archeological dig on a hillside a short walk away. Only fractionally more interesting than the Afrosyab site in Samarkand, it has the benefit of excellent views and being free. But there’s no explanation what this site actually is, and there are some pretty dubious reconstructed buildings.
We go out for dinner, joined by a lovely couple from Brazil, a German motorbike-tourist who becomes known as “Mr Polite”, and a lovely Australian polyglot in his 70s. We’re off to sample the “national dish”, so my expectations are low. In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, that means beshbarmak, a kind of horsemeat minestrone which is honestly a bit forgettable. In Uzbekistan that means plov (aka pilaf), widely available across the stans: a rice dish with meat and a tiny bit of veg, and never as good on the plate as it looks in photos.
But Tajikistan’s national dish is Qurotob and is delicious. Place thin bread in a large dish, layer on meat, cooked vegetables and some salad vegies, and smother it in a kind of tangy cheesy sauce. It’s actually delicious, and much more interesting than the other two.
The Brazillians share one of the most eye-opening travel stories: while stopped for the night along the Pamir Highway, near the border with Afghanistan, they accidentally witnessed a huge drug deal taking place at their guesthouse. A number of Chinese men with suitcases, a group of Afghan men in a toilet cubicle in the middle of the night, the sounds of plastic wrapping, and everyone gone in the very early hours. They ask their guide, who deadpans “I saw nothing”.
What will we say when we return from the mountains?